Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-10-22
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

abreast with the preceding volumes OF the
series, and in literary senseis the superior
of Vol. 1 of Popular Tribunals" The
work opens with a retrospective glance,
terse and to the point of the period
between 1851 and 1856, and then proceeds
to describe the initial outrages which led
up to the famous organization of 1856.
These were the frauds upon the ballot-box.
BY means of a diagram it is explained how
bal;ot-box stuffing was adroitly accom-
plished. From that description the history
of personal assaults and murders is taken
up in exhaustive detail, and continued
through thirty eight chapters. For obvious
reasons we cannot give any adequate con-
ception of the character of the recital. We
have it from the explanatory note OF Mr..
Bancroft in the first volume, that his re-
cital of facts is based upon documentary
proofs, drawn from the only source that
can give them the warrant of absolute
verify. We are moreover told that the re-
citation of facts has also the forIifcation OF
the chief living actors in the tragic
events of the Vigilance Committee
days. In the history OF selt-goyern-
ment there never has been known
any tribunal of the people set up in place
of the methods OF the law, that AZ all COM
pared in importance or wide spreading intlu-
vigilantes of California thirty-one years
ago. The forces then potent, made deep
impress upon civilization, and their infiu-
ence is still strongly felt and probably will
not wholly disappear for another genera
ton. Mr.. Bancrofts facts we are not in
position to either deny or substantive must
assume that the historian, with that preia-
tory careful research which has character
lied all his previous labors upon this in
valuable series, has exhausted the field of
inquiry and fortified himself with the
proofs essential to the formation OF that
impartial judgment which must character
ize the conclusions of the true historian.
There is vigor and positiveness about the
text in this volume more marked than in
preceding ones. The historian is writing of
times and activities of his own period,
and fathoming the purposes and motives
of men of his day, and with the leaders OF
whom he has been brought into contact
during long years and of whose characters
he has enjoyed personal opportunity Of
studying.
The historian, in his summing up, con-
cludes that the times justified the organiZa-
ton of the Vigilance Committee of 1856.
The communities of the State were either
| without legally constituted government,
or else such as they had was weak and adj
| ministered by officers SO wicked as in a
measure to render it imperative. In such
cases outraged justice will sooner or later
rise and put down Misunderstanding to
| law, if possible; if not, then by means con-
| trary to law He is far from approving all
the acts of Vigilantes in California, for IN
many cases the mob spirit ran TO rank iDjus-
| tice, and was the means to infamous taking
| of human life and outrageous interference
| with human rights. AS he puts it, These
| popular punishmentS were sometimes no
| less horrible, no less criminal, than the
crimes themselves" While the reformation
| effected by the San Francisco Vigilance Com
mittee of 1851 was, he holds, but super
| fetal and temporary, that of 1856 was radi-
cal and permanent. The latter tribunal
was composed of men of wealth, intelli-
gence and industry brought together by
| reason neither of mental nor physical
ability, nor of social or political standing,
nor of wealth or culture, nor of literary
! tastes or religious beliefs, but by the sole
| consideration of integrity and zeal in the
interests of orderly society. 1t was an
effort to effect moral regeneration, before
which all small sympathies and antipathies
| were laid aside. Though there were those
| in the committee who did not belong there,
! he comes to the final conclusion that on
! the whole it was wonderfully firm and
pure company fer one of such large and
promiscuous membership. The Execu-
| tive Committee was an intelligent, manly
| body, composed with few exceptions OF
good men. but not all remarkable men
! many OF them very superior men. There
| were present the usual varieties of quail
| ties, positive and negative in opinion and
action, but they were mostly men of
thought, and of independent thought.
There was no lack of probity, patriotism
and practical sagacity among them
We introduce here several extracts to in
dictate the tone of the historians defense
| of the committee
In no other community in the world could
have happened a succession OF such commissions
ending so triumphantly Tor peace and good
morals; i'll no other country in the world could
there have arisen series OF such startling
anomalies in whose subsistence might be found
only the purest and best effects, such originality
% conception united with bOidness of action
and tempered with coolness temperance and
principle. Theirs was the courage to take up
authority, and the courage to lay it down. A
community of EngliShmen never would have
moved; Il community of Frenchmen never
would have ceased moving short of the gulf of
destruction. These yigilants were law-TeSpCct
lDg men, in defiance OF law combined to exc
cute the laws. Good enough laws had been
subverted by lawless men, with a whirl of pas
sion and excitement that threatened anarchy
and ultimate ruin. And these selt-acting prose-
cutions and executions of the popular tribunal
exhibited in flaming colOrs the workings of II
civIiized society without Institutions and with
out precedeents'
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